Surfacing
by Julie Verne
Summary: Kate finds it hard to reconcile who she is with who she was. Slightly dark. Starts at S02E01.
1. Prelude

Chapter 1: Prelude to a kiss

* * *

The first time Betty kissed you, you didn't see it coming.

The second time, you did see it coming. You didn't stop her though.

The third time, you kissed her.

You had to stop counting after that. There were much more interesting things to do than count.

* * *

Author's note: These guys won't leave me alone. Uncertain about Kate POV as I've never been a straight lady.

This is going to be another long story, I suspect. Might be triggering. It's starting out dark, anyhow.


	2. Alleycats

Chapter 2: Alley cats

* * *

You can't believe it when you see Betty on the street that night; even less so when she says she has a boyfriend, yelling about letters and lies. You don't want your father to chase her off but it was better that he did, even if you know you'll be bearing the brunt of it later, so when he turns away you chase her off yourself. You ask him again about the letter once she's gone but he brushes the question away with a grimace, like most of your questions. You have more and more of them, these days.

It was amazing though, how the sight of her gave you unexpected hope. That somehow this misery would end. You tried not to miss your past, sinful life, especially in your father's company, but you did anyway. And he knew you did. And he made you pay for that.

And just about everything else you'd ever done.

After that, things happen so fast. Your father steps out of the glow of the fire to fetch more firewood and Betty appears, trying to steal you away into the night, and you want to go with her, really you do, but you have to get money for your mother. You don't have time to tell her before your father returns.

And when he returns he spouts the usual hellfire and you finally get the courage to ask where your mother is, the very presence of Betty making you brave enough to ask him what you'd been suspecting for months. What he told you turned you cold, colder than the night air that had already seeped its way into your bones. The fire didn't even warm you when you stepped closer to it, closer to him, to get in his face and yell at him for the first time in your life.

Lies. All lies. This has to be another one.

But you know, you don't know how, but you know it isn't. The self-satisfied look on his face verifies that for you.

And then he has you by the throat but you're used to this and you have to be heard, just once. You have to let him know what you think of him. So you keep yelling until you have no breath left to yell and you can't pull a new breath in and you're getting dizzy and then…

And then Betty pulls him off of you and while you're catching your breath, she draws him away like a sacrificial lamb to the slaughter.

You saw him hit her once, and you did nothing. She was trying to protect you then; she is trying to protect you now. So you chase him down and you haul him away from her and before you know it he's lying two floors down on concrete, sprawled in an undignified heap.

And you're glad.

* * *

Betty wants to do something, find the police, report it. But your heart is like a stone, heavy in your chest. You just cover him with a handy piece of cloth and walk away, expecting her to follow. She hesitates, then hurried footsteps follow you out into the street.

"Will you come back to the rooming house with me?" She asks. "You'll be safe enough there, for tonight at least." She told you you'd be safe there once before, but he found you there anyway. Now that he's dead you guess you're finally safe, so it doesn't matter where you go. Just as long as you go. So you nod and she has to trot to keep up with you.

You're an orphan now.

But at least you're finally free.


	3. Room to swing a cat

Chapter 3: Room to swing a cat

* * *

Betty is careful when she smuggles you up to her room; tucks your hair in under your cap, pulls your scarf over your face and buttons your overcoat the rest of the way up, careful not to touch your skin, even with her gloved hands. She eyes you appraisingly and shrugs. It's not much of a disguise.

But the rest of the factory girls are out at Gladys' shindig, and those left in the rooming house are having too good a time of it to notice an extra girl here or there.

It's relief you feel, in Betty's room. It's so familiar; you've always felt safe here. She pulls one of your dresses you left behind from her bureau and hands you a towel.

"Washroom should be free, this time of night," she says, and it's the first thing she's said to you since you left that alleyway. You nod and try to tug your gloves off but your hands are numb and shaking too hard so Betty pulls them off, gentle, still trying not to touch your skin. She unbuttons your coat and pulls the scarf loose gently, hissing through her teeth at the sight of your throat. She hangs the scarf loose around your neck. "Figure you can manage the rest?" She asks, shifting nervously. You nod and brush past her.

The water's not hot, but at least it's warm; warmer than you've been in months. As much as you hate baths this one feels nice because you're finally washing your father off of you. All his lies, all his hatred and empty homilies. You scrub until you get feeling back into your toes, but when you get to your neck, you can't get it clean enough. You end up scratching at it with your bitten nails, trying to cover the blunt bruised pain with something sharper.

When you're as clean as you're ever going to be, you drain the tub and pull your old dress on. Of course Betty kept your things. You should have known she wouldn't give up on finding you. Even if you hadn't wanted to be found. But you _had _wanted to be found, so badly. So many things in life you regret; that you believed a word out of your father's mouth that night is your biggest. Throwing him over a railing to his death isn't even in the top five.

Betty's pacing when you get back to her room, smoking an agitated cigarette. You close the door quietly behind you and start rubbing at your hair again with the towel. She's trying not to watch you but there's another intake of air when she sees your neck again. She pulls the towel away from you and puts a cautious hand on your throat. It's gentle and deliciously cool against your red-raw skin and you shut your eyes.

"You been scratching at it?" She asks quietly, as though it's not obvious. You open your eyes and she's peering into your face, expecting you to look back but you don't because you're not the Kate Andrews she knew. Everything you knew about yourself has changed now. So you turn to the mirror instead and your neck – your neck is bruised and raw. And in the corner of the frame is the only decent photo from the lot that so-called photographer took. She coughs uncomfortably somewhere behind you. "Going to take a bath." She says, then slips out.

You're still staring in the mirror when she comes back in. She's calmer now, at least. You've been calm ever since it happened, but she's been jumpy. Understandably.

She jumps when there's a soft knock on the door and you meet her eyes. She looks away and you make yourself as small as you can.

You're good at that.

When Gladys apologizes and pushes the door open a little you both relax and Betty exhales, cloud of smoke spilling from her mouth. When Gladys mentions searching for you, Betty just inclines her head in your direction and you step into her line of sight. Suddenly the breath goes out of you as Gladys envelops you with the warmth your life has been missing for such a long time. It takes a while to remember how to hug, your hands catch at fur and pull away before muscle memory kicks in.

Betty doesn't tell Gladys what happened and you don't say a word; your throat is too tight for speaking. But she gathers from the mood of the room that it wasn't easy, getting you back here, and she respects the silence.

The three of you end up on the bed, Betty as far away as she can be from you in such a confined space, Gladys' body warming you through your thin dress.

You'd forgotten what it felt like, the warmth of a friend.

Then Betty turns her head to look at you and you've only once ever seen her quite this unsettled. And you can tell she's being careful when she passes the cigarette over to you, but you make sure your fingers brush against hers, just so you can tell she's real.

Just so you can tell you're really here. It's almost like you're dreaming, and you almost wish you were.


	4. Bran Nue Dae

Chapter 4: Bran Nue Dae

* * *

You spent the night in Betty's bed, Gladys downstairs on the couch and Betty guarding the door, sitting in a chair, head propped against the bureau.

You didn't think you could sleep; not tonight, but somehow being here soothes you into sleep; the pillow smells of Betty and you've always associated her with being safe and protected.

But when you start dreaming, you dream of Betty and a white dress and your father chasing you because _he's not dead_.

And when you wake up, you're not sure it wasn't all some sort of horrible dream. Then you touch your throat and you know it wasn't. But now you're not sure he's dead and you want to make sure, really, truly sure, that he is.

You don't want him showing up here again.

When you look toward the door, Betty's head is at an angle that looks uncomfortable. You watch her for a moment, considering the chain of events that led you here.

You'd have never got away, if it hadn't been for her.

You wouldn't have killed your father, if it hadn't been for her.

You don't know whether to thank her or to blame her.

But she does look uncomfortable, and it's such a… Betty thing to do, to sleep all night in a chair to make sure she doesn't make you feel uncomfortable, to make sure no one gets past her; you shrug that thought away and wake her up to tell her your concern. She agrees, mostly to placate you, but she agrees.

You're sure it's him when something slides under the door, but it's just Gladys with Valentines. You've never had a Valentine before. It figures your first is from Gladys. Another first a woman has taken from you.

* * *

When Betty goes to work you sift through her clothes, trying to find where she keeps yours.

She keeps them in a package wrapped in brown paper, tied with string, _Kate Andrews_ on a piece of card. If you could cry, you would. Finally, something that's yours.

You dress but when you look in the mirror your photo is gone and your neck is so ugly looking that you put a scarf you hadn't been planning on wearing around your throat. The pressure on your windpipe makes you retch and you have to loosen it, but that doesn't stop you from retching.

You spend most of the rest of the morning vomiting the breakfast Betty and Gladys put together into the toilet, because even though the scarf is nowhere near your neck, you can still feel the pressure of it, of his hands tightening and closing your airways; the kind of vomiting where you struggle to breathe and tears pour down your face and your chest is heaving and you can't breathe in long enough to stop vomiting and there's nothing left, just foul-tasting bile but it won't stop coming up. When you finally finish you're worn out and gasping for breath and it's too hard to even get to the sink to rinse your mouth out. But the tiled floor is cool against your hot face and you pass out.

And that's how Betty finds you, a few hours later. She just sighs and pulls you upright, over to the sink and runs wet hands over your face and, after a brief pause, your neck. She's gentle enough but it makes your empty stomach clench and you have to push her away. She's not daunted, just undoes the buttons of your dress and disappears. She comes back with a clean dress and her toothbrush loaded with toothpaste and leaves again without a word.

So you clean yourself up, thankfully scrub your mouth out, put on the clean dress and she's waiting in the hallway; lit cigarette between her fingers, leaning against the wall. You nod and she swaps your dirty dress for her cigarette and goes back into the washroom, throwing your dress over a hanging line when she comes back out. You inhale slowly and the smoke tastes terrible with toothpaste but at least your mouth feels cleaner. She smiles sideways at you.

"Ready to go?" she asks, and you can tell this is something she doesn't want to do. So you nod, because this is something you don't want to do either.

* * *

Author's note: Going to the land before internet for a few days (Otherwise known as 'walkabout' or 'going bush', or 'any Australian country town'.). Ironic because I just cabled a building for internet. Got a few chapters up that I can release with my phone if I get up on the roof or to the nearest town's library. Will be back in time for the FemSlashCon Bomb Girls panel.

Title from the Australian play/movie (Brand New Day)


	5. Normal and Home

Chapter 5: Normal and Home

* * *

His body is gone when you get to the alley. You're sure it's because he's alive; she's sure it's because someone's found him but for sure you need to get out of this alley. Again.

You still feel his fingers on your throat. It itches, and you have trouble keeping your nails away from it. Betty slaps your hand down three times that afternoon but doesn't even look at you.

Normal. You'll be acting like normal.

* * *

You go meet her boyfriend and a boy for you at a bar. That seems normal. Betty's boyfriend seems nice, but something seems off-kilter. You know you didn't imagine sitting at the piano with her; her nervousness belies that, but she's so… normal. You don't know how she could say she loved you if she can turn around and start dating Ivan, who is very different from you. Maybe you mistook her intentions, after all. Maybe she meant to kiss your cheek. Maybe she just said that so you would know, just once, what it felt like to be loved, even as you pushed her away and stood behind your father to hide from someone who had been nothing but decent to you, someone that took care of you.

Your father. You're not supposed to be thinking about him. You're supposed to be acting normal. You cast a glance at Betty and she's laughing with her hand on Ivan's arm and she looks so… normal.

Maybe she is normal.

Which is what you should be right now, but you can't bring yourself to talk to Ivan's friend. Your throat itches and it still hurts to talk and you keep seeing your father everywhere.

He's everywhere. Everywhere. He never stops watching.

So you decide to go up to North Bay. Even if your brothers take after your father, at least they're family. At least Betty won't be in any more trouble.

You don't know why she'd even want you around. You don't know what you did to deserve a friend like this.

You go to the trailer to get the train fare to your family and nearly take out a policeman sniffing around. He's full of questions but you steady your nerves by thinking how Gladys would handle this. Back straight, dignity. So that's what you try to do. You've not had much practice at being self-assured but you think you carry it off. He shows you your father's body and you try to hide relief under grief and now you see him really and truly dead, you are a little sad. He's so small and crumpled, and it's hard to believe you let something so small rule your life for so long.

You try to hold onto your sadness but it slips away, so you think of your mother instead. That's better, in the sense that you're almost teary-eyed now. You almost give the whole show away by using the name Smith to throw them off, away from Betty, but you walk out of there free and clear, head bowed, finally pulling the scarf away from where it's been snug against your skin and bringing your nails over the itch that's yet to fade.

It doesn't matter anyway. You're leaving town. You'll never see him again.

You go to VicMu to tell Betty; you can't wait until her shift ends, you have to get out while you can. You're not surprised when she askes you to stay, but you're a little surprised at her vehemance. Why would she want you to stay when your very presence could be putting her into danger? It doesn't make sense to you. Maybe she wants to make sure you're safe, maybe she doesn't trust your brothers (and, when you get down to it, you're a little uncertain of them yourself). You want her to explain it but Mrs Corbett needs medical assistance and you're left mopping up blood. Again. But at least you're out of range of Betty's accusatory look, that cut-to-the-heart face. It follows you though, sits uneasily in your mind.

* * *

You sit at a train station, waiting for a train for four hours before checking the schedule. No trains up to North Bay today.

So you take your carpet bag and go back to the only home you have; not that trailer, it can rot for all you care.

You go back to the rooming house.

You go back to Betty. She's much better family than you've ever had.

She's having tea with her boyfriend but she turns from him the moment he calls you to her attention. There's such a look of hope on her face. And something else, but you brush that aside.

You know you shouldn't be holding her this tightly, but she's all you've got to hold onto. So you shut your eyes and pull her tighter, because you're home.


	6. Unravelling

Chapter 6: Unraveling

* * *

You stay in Betty's room three more nights before you get your own room back. Mrs. Corbett takes you back on without hesitation. She knows you won't say a word.

When you sleep, you dream. You dream of fingers wrapped around your throat, a pressure on the windpipe, of airways slowly closing and lungs stutter-stuck on either side of a speeding heartbeat. You dream of choking, gasping for a breath that never comes, you dream of familiar laughter and your head below water.

You don't remember what dying feels like, but your body does, and it reminds you in your dreams.

You dream of the crack of leather on flesh, you dream of your mother's voice.

You don't know which sound is worse.

So you stay awake, to keep them at bay. One time, when you were still in Betty's room, in Betty's bed, you started having that dream and she shook you by the arm and you were still asleep and you _hit_ her, just in the shoulder and she grabbed your wrists and you just kept fighting her until you woke up and found out it wasn't him, that you'd been hitting the best friend you'd ever had.

You couldn't apologize fast enough. You'll never be able to apologize enough.

She just shrugged, rubbed her arm and said she should've learnt to dodge a punch by now, the way people keep handing them out. She's the last person you'd want to hurt, and you _did_ hurt her, you see the bruises on her arms and chest blooming in the showers the next afternoon.

You try not to look at her in the showers, for the most part though.

So you stay awake. As long as you can.

It takes three days before things get weird, usually. You'll hear things that aren't there, can't be there. A yell, just in the range of your hearing, but there's no one in sight. Things shift on the edge of your vision. Words blur, time shifts.

So when you get to the third night, you drink. You'll drink anything anyone will buy you.

And somehow stumble home and pass out to sweet, dreamless nothingness.

Sometimes you wake on the couch downstairs, sometimes in your own bed. You woke up once and Betty was carrying you upstairs, putting you into your own bed and wiping vomit out of your hair.

You don't know how many times she's done this. She retreats, only to return with a wet cloth which she runs over your face, following the trail of vomit down to your hands. She swipes quickly over the front of your dress with a whispered apology; she must have done this before and you never knew. Evidently she thinks you are asleep because she hasn't said a word, just a few sad sighs and you feel like you should say something but you don't know what you could possibly say. She leaves again but returns with a glass of water for your bedside table.

You can't hide from her. She can see you unraveling.

But she's too hopeless at knitting to bring the edges of you back together.

* * *

Author's note: managed to get an antenna commission, got a good internet signal.


	7. Nothing happens for a reason

Chapter 7: Nothing happens for a reason

* * *

You're not sure what to say to Betty, the next few days. She comes home later and later each night and although you're always awake, you don't know what to say.

She knocks quietly on your door a few nights later. She's got bad timing; it's late and you're part of the way through a bottle of whiskey. She lets herself in and shuts the door behind her before you can answer, looks at the whiskey in your hand and gives one of those sighs you're becoming far too used to. You're sick of them and full of indignation that _she_ is judging _you._

"I killed my father, Betty. I think I'm allowed a drink or two to keep that off my mind." You know how callous you sound but you're tired of pretending nothing happened with the only person who was there when the nothing that happened happened.

"It's becoming more than that," she says awkwardly. You meet her gaze steadily, daring her to continue. She doesn't though, just joins you on the bed.

Now that she's this close she smells different to how she usually smells. She smells like a man.

She smells like Ivan.

The realization hits you hard when you think about how close they must have been for her to smell this strongly of him. She doesn't seem to notice though, just takes the bottle from you and takes a swig. She splutters and coughs; you only buy the strong stuff. It costs more and burns all the way down and back up but you're eating less these days so you can afford it.

"Geez, Kate, what is this?" She asks, examining the label.

"Where have you been?" You ask her, ignoring her question and retrieving your whiskey. You knock it back with a grimace.

"Out with Ivan," she says cautiously, and the confirmation makes your head spin a little. She should have been with you, making sure you got home safely instead of out with some fellow. It hurts to think she's growing away from you and closer to him. She's the only secure thing you have now, the only thing you have left to hold on to and you thought, stupidly, that once she found you she'd keep you safe. Instead you feel more and more alone each day. She worries about you, you know that, otherwise she wouldn't carry you up the stairs. But she's outgrowing you and turning into someone you don't quite recognize. You've seen them together, you've watched them kiss over the rim of your glass and she seems, they seem… happy.

It doesn't quite make sense to you. So you drink some more. Betty takes the bottle from you and stands.

"I think you've had enough tonight," she says quietly, and you still know her well enough that if you were to contradict her she would back down, hand you back your bottle. But she's right, so you don't. She looks like she wants to say something else, but instead she rests her hand on the back of your neck and kisses you on the forehead.

She kisses you on the forehead to convey something she can't say and you raise your face to her, you don't know why, and when your nose brushes hers she hesitates, stops pulling away; you feel her breath brushing over your face, spilling past your lips and into your mouth and you inhale quickly, swallowing past an unexpected lump in your throat. Her breath tastes like whiskey, like Ivan, like something you can't name. Her eyes flicker to your throat, then your mouth and another exhalation, shallower this time, spills over your face. Her tongue peeks out to wet her lips and you raise your head a little more and now you can feel her hair fanning across your face because she's still leaning over you a little. Her eyes meet yours and she's breathing faster now, little gusts of breath are hitting your face, and her hand is trembling on your shoulder and your heart is beating like you're in danger but there's no danger here, only Betty.

You wonder, briefly, if this is the way she always feels around you before she finally pulls away and runs a still shaky hand through your hair.

You don't know why you feel disappointed.

"Goodnight Kate," she says quietly, slipping out your door and shutting it behind her.

* * *

It takes a few minutes for you to process what just happened, that Betty nearly kissed you and you must have been hypnotized by the whiskey infused with the smell of her and Ivan, by the soothing circles her thumb made at the base of your skull, been drunk on the taste of her breath in your mouth because for a moment there you wanted her to.

You wanted her to kiss you, more than anything you ever wanted.

And that can't be right, it just can't be. There's a sick, heavy feeling in your chest that drops to your stomach. You're not going to be sick but something inside you feels _wrong._

It's probably the smell of her that confused you, or that she's the only person who's ever kissed you, other than that man in the stockroom and those two kisses aren't comparable, even if you didn't want either.

So you find your feet and stumble to Betty's room and knock as gently as you can, because your hand is heavy. There's an answering grunt so you push the door open. Betty's cross-legged on her bed, street shoes still on, throwing crumpled pieces of paper at her wastepaper basket.

The whiskey is nowhere in sight.

Her shoulders are stiff and her mouth is a straight line so you know you won't be getting an answer out of her tonight, which is a little relieving as you'd yet to formulate a question.

Maybe it'd be better if you just forget it, pretend it never happened.

Nothing did happen, after all.

So you just ask her for a cigarette and she tosses you her softpack after extracting one for herself, flicking her lighter to life.

She holds it out, flicks it for you too and you steadily hold her gaze over the unsteady flame.

"Thanks, Betty," you tell her once it's lit. "For everything."

* * *

You return to your room. You sleep. You dream.

You dream of Betty kissing Ivan.

You dream of kissing Ivan.

You dream of Betty kissing you.

You don't dream about your father. Not even a little bit.

* * *

Author's note: I'll be on the Bomb Girls panel on FemSlashCon tonight.  
It was really hard to convey the confusion of having a drunken really gay moment with a friend. I hope I did it justice.


	8. Your face, I kinda like it

Chapter 8: Your face, I kinda like it

* * *

You took a different locker when you came back to VicMu, further away from Betty's. Gladys had taken yours anyway.

Sometimes you think Gladys knows, must know, because she gives you a look like she's disappointed when you dodge away from Betty.

But this morning Gladys is asking question after question about Betty and Ivan's date last night and you're getting a lot of details you don't want to hear. Your head isn't pounding with every beat of your heart this morning but your heart is starting to hurt instead. It makes sense now, the way Betty smelled last night, but you're still confused.

You can't have wanted to kiss her. It seems so unreal, now you're sober. You were drunk, or maybe you were sorry for her, or.

There has to be some reason. You look over at her, Gladys is sniggering at something Betty's just whispered to her and Betty is smirking in her underwear and she's vaguely bruised, just above her hips and around her collarbone. When she sees you looking she pulls her overalls in front of her body and you feel even more confused, because aren't you the one hiding your body from her? You finish tucking your hair under your turban and get on the factory floor.

You can't talk to Betty today, not on the line, not at lunch, where Ivan swoops in and tucks her in under his arm and she smiles and lets him kiss her and you have to excuse yourself and when you get to the washroom you just stare at your face in the mirror, because you don't recognize who you are, or why there's a sinking feeling in your chest.

On the streetcar home, Betty gets off at a different stop to you and you find it very hard not to go after her. She doesn't even look back at you.

You spent a lot of time alone, as a child. It doesn't make sense how much more lonely you feel right now, alone on a streetcar in the middle of a bunch of chattering girls.

You open your door when you hear her at hers, and she looks up guiltily. You can't say anything though, you're just stuck there, looking at her face.

And she smiles and says goodnight and shuts the door.

You're left there thinking.

About her face.

* * *

Author's note: Got a court thing coming up so it's hard to concentrate on this. It's too close to home. I might have to cut this one a bit short.

In other news I have turned into a grumpy old man which is unfortunate.


	9. The girl you're not

Chapter 9: The girl you're not

* * *

The next time you fall asleep on the couch, Betty doesn't carry you upstairs.

You're unreasonably disappointed. She comes across you in the morning and tells you what you're doing is running away from your troubles.

Which is true. But you can't quite think about it without breaking a little bit, in your head. The entire evening is still subreal; you have memories that seem superimposed on the background of your life; probing them feels like poking your tongue into a gap where a tooth used to be. There's an ever-present tightening of your throat when you start to remember so you try not to. Still, you've run through that night in your mind a few times, trying to figure out if there was any other course of action you could have taken. But you're certain now that the moment he went after Betty, he was a dead man. You'd been harboring hate in your heart for years and you could have easily thrown him off of you by yourself; he would have hurt you but he wouldn't have killed you. But once he went after Betty, who was just trying to save you from a routine beating, your hate burned red hot and it still keeps you warm.

Your mother was dead. All that time.

Betty appears behind you as you're staring in the mirror again; says you're going out in a tone that brooks no arguments.

Not that you have any. If anything, you're thrilled that she's apparently going to be spending time with you. So you tear your gaze away from your own in the mirror and leave the girl you're not behind the glass. When you see Betty again she's dressed real nice, like you're going somewhere good, so you take the time to rub some lipstick over your mouth, Betty's eyes averted when you check the mirror.

You feel betrayed when she stops out the front of Leon's church. You used to come here, couple of times a month. You felt comfortable here, you felt right here. But now you feel like Betty's trying to mock you.

Honor your mother and your father.

Thou shalt not kill.

That's twenty percent of the commandments, right there. The kingdom of heaven is no longer for you. God let you suffer your father; you won't be suffering either of them any longer.

But then Betty's hand sneaks into yours; you grasp it reflexively and she tugs you inside.

She's stubborn today. And a little uncomfortable; you're not sure if it's being in a church or being in a room of black people that's affecting her, but she pulls you into a pew and forcefully sits you down next to her. You can feel where her thigh is brushing against yours until she pulls away quickly, pulls her hand back out of yours. Your hand remains curled though, and you clench it when you notice.

Usually you can feel God when Leon sings, but there's an empty void in the church, just like there's an empty void in your heart and head, where there used to be a foolish belief and now there is nothing except a worthless ingrate of a murderess. But Betty, who doesn't believe in God and told you so the second time you met, looks entranced. Something about this is making her feel _something_ and it's something you'll never have again.

So you storm out.

You expect Betty to follow you but she doesn't come out until right near the end. You're feeling foolish by now, sitting on the steps by yourself. Nothing is like it used to be.

Betty isn't like she used to be.

An you realize it must have been this… this love of hers, that kept her at your side, all that time last year. And now that she has Ivan, you're back to being on your own.

You didn't think it would bother you this much. You thought you'd be relieved that she wasn't _like that_ and that she was normal and not a sinner.

But now that you're a sinner, you could use the company. There used to be something about Betty that made you feel like you were safe, as long as she was in arm's reach. Now she's barely in the same room as you and you're lost, so lost, in your own mind and you want her to lead you back to being Kate Andrews because at the moment you're Marian Rowley and you've never much liked her.

She's weak and timid and can't pour amatol.

And she's angry.

So you storm off with Betty's cigarette and there's a clenching of your stomach when you feel the dampness from her lips.

Not with anxiety though. This is something new. You've shared what must be hundreds of cigarettes with her and none of them made you feel like this. When you look at it her lipstick is on the filter.

You need her.

You need her to make you Kate Andrews.

You hear her footsteps dogging yours half a block later and you feel a sense of triumph.

* * *

Author's note:

Will you let me be the girl you're not

When I look at me it's all I've got

Sarah Bettens - Driving alone tonight

Every time I have time to think I think of this

Ani diFranco – Cloud Blood.


	10. Defragmenting

Chapter 10: Defragmenting

* * *

Betty goes her own way when you get home but Gladys trails you up to your room from where she'd been waiting in the common room downstairs. She shuts the door behind her.

"There's a… wound… on your side that doesn't seem to be healing, Kate," she says carefully. You know the one she means; it's been inflamed and it's been weeks since it was put there. You wonder if she's the one that noticed or if Betty has been sneaking peeks at you and asked Gladys to approach you because she has a fiancé to hide behind.

"I know." You say shortly.

"Maybe I could take you to a doctor," she says hesitantly.

"Any doctor is going to ask how I got it and I can't. I can't talk about that Gladys. I can't." Because once you start talking you won't be able to stop and you'll convict yourself.

"Have you been putting anything on it?" She asks, and you nod toward a pot of antiseptic on the dresser. She examines the label. "Do you want me to put some on for you?" She asks, and you can _hear_ the hesitation in her voice, but you nod because it's something your mother used to do for you and Gladys is the closest thing to her you have now.

It requires removing your dress, but Gladys has seen your back many times now and there's no shock there in her face when she sees the extent of the broken skin of your torso and it's comforting in a way you hadn't expected.

Her hands are softer than Betty's, you notice as she brings her hand over the gash over your hip. Must be all those creams in her hotel room. She runs her hand over a few of the older scars too. When she finishes you have to hug her so badly that you don't even pull your dress back on first. She's so gentle and soft and your life has been the opposite of either of those things so long.

"Do you want me to get Betty?" She asks, obviously unnerved but pliant and resting her arms around you.

"No. I need her too much already." You tell her. You realize what you've said out loud when Gladys pulls back, her eyes wide. You pull her back into you so you can bury your face in her shoulder. "She's all I've got."

"You've got me" she starts.

"No, you've got James. And Betty's got Ivan."

"I thought you didn't want Betty."

"How would you know that?" Because you want to know how Gladys knows about this. It's easier with your face hidden from hers.

"You disappeared. I wanted to know why. You should tell her. Besides, haven't you seen the way she looks at you?"

"She was my friend, Gladys. I never had a friend like her, before or since. What am I supposed to know about the way people look at each other." But you did know, the looks she never gave Gladys or Edith warmed your insides like whiskey.

If someone can look at this body, day after day, and still be able to tell you they love you, they probably meant it.

But she doesn't look at you like that anymore. But you find comfort in the fact that she doesn't look at Ivan like that either.

* * *

Author's note: Sorry about the delay, between the 12 hour classes and the doctor and lawyers it's been busy and irritable and pills and yesterday I yelled at a butterfly. Called it a sonuvabitch and told it to get out of my yard.  
Well, no, I stole that from Corner Gas, but you try spending 12 hours a day with the same three people, one of whom is a brony, one of whom pretends to be a shark and the other doesn't speak very much.

It's like being in a room of puppies. At first it's fun and adorable and then it's like where did all these puppies come from I'm sure there wasn't this many a few minutes ago oh god they're eating all my lollies and there's crap everywhere and they're climbing on my lap and now my facebook page is full of ponies and I don't know how to fix it and oh god what's happened to my life.


	11. Spotlight

Chapter 11: Spotlight. I found you. I know who you are. Spotlight.

* * *

When I was a child, I loved as a child.

When you were a child, you loved your father. He wasn't always the person he became.

You're not sure who the person he turned you into is, though.

You haven't sang in weeks. At first your throat was too sore, and then you lost sight of anything there could be to sing about. Certainly not gospel. Certainly not soul.  
Because your soul is too grubby to expose. Back when you sang, and you did sing, you sang from your heart. A heart that now sits behind the jailing bars of a ribcage for crime that you committed. There's not much left of you now; not that you'd recognize. You catch glimpses of yourself in mirrors but you're not really there. You're just kind of floating in empty space between alcohol and work. Betty's broken up with Ivan and you feel bad about how good that feels. Things don't change, though. She spends nights out with Gladys and not you, and shuts the door behind her when she comes home instead of leaving it open like she used to. She's shut you out.

And then Lorna's son turns up and a switch throws in your brain. He's in uniform and he's Lorna's son so you know he's vouchsafed.

So you invite him around to the boardinghouse. Things don't go as you planned and he takes an interest in Gladys. Of course. But at least you haven't seen Ivan in a while.

Gladys… understands, and she didn't intend to be enticing, she's just, well, enticing. In general.

Then there's yelling in the yard and when you go down Betty is conversing with a man on the ground, and you know, with a sinking feeling, that it's the escaped Nazi, and nothing he could have to say to her is good. You pull her back upstairs with you and wipe the blood from her hands and run your antiseptic over it. She tells you again that you're safe here, despite the evidence to the contrary; your father, Nazi's. But you want to believe her; you need to believe her because you can't keep living like this.

When you're wrapping her hand in a bandage from the first aid kit downstairs she looks at you intently. You avoid her gaze, keep your eyes on your suddenly shaking hands absorbed in the over-under of covering a hand.

"You're safe here," she says again. "You don't have to worry. I'd sooner face a cellar of Nazi's than let one in the boarding house. You don't have to worry."

"I'm worried because I don't know who I am." You tell her quietly, still avoiding her eyes. She raises her good hand, gets halfway to your chin, then puts it back in her lap. You lift your face a little anyway, focus on her collarbone.

"You're Kate Andrews, you're beautiful and I love you," she says. She doesn't stumble over any of her words and her assurance reassures you.

"I'm not Kate Andrews and I'm not beautiful," you tell her earnestly. You don't know how to deal with her third point.

"Eye of the beholder. Two out of three isn't bad," she says casually, like it doesn't mean anything.

It means everything. You meet her eyes and she sees, really _sees_ you. Cuts through the fear and anger and confusion and _sees_ you. You drag your eyes back to your hands, now cradling hers and reluctantly let hers go.

You find yourself humming as you get ready for bed.

* * *

Author's note: Sorry this is going so slow. There's a lot going on and I thought I was going mad but I don't think I am now; this court thing is got me acting all dingo. Pre-trial hearing means being in the same room. Not ideal.  
Speaking of dingoes, my best mate's dingo actually did go dingo and had to be put down. And my PTSD buddy stabbed his sister so everything is just... disconcerting. Like normal, but tilted 0.45 degrees.

Title from The Waif's song "Spotlight".


	12. I can't catch you

Chapter 12: And I can't catch you

* * *

When you start dating Ivan, you feel the ghost of Betty all around you, and that's why you don't mind when he takes things a little farther than you thought you should go.

"Do I kiss like Betty?" You ask him one night after a heavy kissing session in someone's car he's borrowed. He's tried his hand at some petting but you're skittish and his hands are too _large_ and _clumsy_ and in the back of your mind is the constant worry that if you stop him, he'll use those big hands to hit you.

"Why would you even ask something like that?" He asks, seeming genuinely offended. You know he had a hard time getting over Betty and you understand that. Someone like her only comes along one in a lifetime.

But somehow kissing Ivan was better in your dreams.

You wanted to know because you have first-hand knowledge of the way Betty kisses; clumsily and whole-heartedly, and you wanted to know how you compared to that.

Because the way Ivan kisses you, even in your dreams, is never as good as the way Betty kissed you.

There's something more _urgent_ about the way he kisses you, and all you want is time to figure out how to do this properly. You're still not sure if you're supposed to close your eyes. You don't though, because behind your eyes lurk a thousand images.

One of these is your father, holding a Bible and yelling.

So you keep your eyes open, so you're always very aware of the way Ivan looks up close, those light eyelashes, faint freckles. Big hands that rest on either side of your face and sometimes slide down to your neck and you have to pull away and swallow abruptly to keep your instincts and your dinner down.

He's still looking at you, waiting for an answer.

"I don't know, I just… haven't done this before," you tell him, hoping he'll buy it.

He does, and he cradles your face to kiss you again. But his hands are just too close to your throat and you have to get out of there before he gets you out of your cardigan. You make your excuses and, slightly disgruntled, he drives you home.

Betty's door is open when you get home. You remember the weight of her face in your hand when you held it still to hold ice to a swollen eye. You remember her hands resting lightly in yours, the smell of nail polish and cigarettes thick in the air, making it hard to swallow.

You remember her soft lips pressing against yours.

You don't want to remember anything else, so you go to your room. You leave your door open though, and Betty wanders in gingerly a few minutes later.

"How's Ivan," she asks, skulking in the doorway.

"Fine," you tell her, because it's strange; she used to date him.

She used to love you.

But she used to date him and she knows what an evening in a car with him is like better than you do, and when you realize the smell of his cologne is sticking to you, you worry that it'll make her sad or strange or _jealous._

And you want, right now, to make her jealous; for all those nights you needed her and she was out with him, for all the times you turned to her shut door and were too afraid to knock, for all the times you wondered what she was going to say when she asked you not to leave.

For all the times she let you doze in her bed, before you knew, and she watched over you like a guard dog, but better. Because it was Betty and you knew, somehow, that she would best your father if he found you.

She could have too, if you hadn't broken her spirit first. She was the best friend you ever had, and she looked so… deflated. Defeated.

It's confusing, all of this, because you're trying to see now, looking back, when you should have recognized what she was and _what she was to you._

"That's nice," she says cautiously. You nod, equally cautiously.

"Can I have my whiskey back?" You ask suddenly, because her eyes are soft and the way she's looking at you is a little unnerving. She nods and ducks out the doorway, returning with your bottle. You take a slug.

"Went that well, huh?" She asks, and there's a little bitterness in her voice you never used to hear when she was talking to you.

"Why does everybody want to touch my neck?" You ask, in reply.

"Does it still hurt?" She asks, crossing the threshold of your doorway and coming toward you. The concern on her face warms better than the whiskey. You shake your head but take another drink. "Can I…" She trails off and you lift your head.

Her hands are small and warm on the side of your face, and she's slow, ever so slow and gentle when she slides them down to your throat. "Does that hurt?" She asks, looking from her hands to your face and suddenly realizing how close she is to you, taking a step back. Your stomach is a clenched ball of fear even after her hands are gone but you breathe slowly through it and shake your head. "I didn't know what else to do," she says quietly. "But I thought he'd rather come after me." This isn't a conversation you should have with your door open so your brush past her and close it, leaning against the solid wood.

"I killed him because he did," you tell her, making eye contact.

There's not much to say, after that, and you're glad when she makes an excuse and leaves. When you sneak to the bathroom to wash the smell of Ivan off of you, her door is closed again.

* * *

Author's note: thanks to the folk reviewing this. Sorry I didn't say that before, but thank you.  
Title from Sixpence None The Richer's song "I can't catch you".


	13. The unlucky

Chapter 13: The unlucky

* * *

It takes a while for you to remember to ask Betty about the letter she was talking about with your father. Yelling about, really. She tries to shrug it off but you have her cornered in her room, and you're not leaving without an answer.

"He didn't contact me," she tells you. "He wrote a letter to the factory, to Mrs. Corbett. About how I was a deviant freak preying on his daughter, Marian Rowley. I said the name wasn't familiar, and none of what he said was true." She shrugs. "Guess she believed me, since I started seeing Ivan around then."

It makes sense that your father wouldn't leave it at punching her in the face, he had to make her suffer. It makes you wonder about the amount of people he made suffer. At that point though, it stopped being about you, or Marian Rowley. Whichever one you are, these days. It started being about Betty and there's a fierce protectiveness that makes you glad he can't send any more letters.

Then a glimmer of a memory forms.

"But Mrs. Corbett knows," you tell Betty. "She knows my name's not Kate. When Hazel was stealing Gladys's things, she found my locket, thought I was the thief because my name wasn't Marian, that's why I was in the store-room. She called out Marian and I turned, and… she's not stupid Betty."

"She knows you're not Kate Andrews?" Betty's face is suddenly drawn tight. "She knows it's not your real name?"

You nod, worried at the look on Betty's face.

"Well, you still got a job, so I guess she doesn't mind…" Betty says slowly. "Otherwise she woulda turned you out of the factory. Me too, probably."

This is the point where you realize that security papers don't give you a whole bunch of security.

"But she must know that letter was about me, Betty. This is serious, you could go to jail if she believes it." And you could go to jail if someone comes asking about a Marian Rowley in regards to the death of her father.

"I haven't given her a reason to believe it. She probably thinks we just had a tiff or something, and if she knows you're not who you say you are, then she also knows you have a good reason to be someone else. She's seen your back in the showers. You're right. She's not stupid. If she knows, she's not saying anything."

You sit down on Betty's bed, thinking. Your father wrote the truth, but you'd rather everyone believe it was a lie. Even though you're not hiding from him anymore, there's a policeman out there who you assume would be very interested in talking to you.

Betty kind of hovers before sitting next to you, far enough away that you're uncomfortable about how uncomfortable she is around you.

"You're not disgusting, you know," you blurt out suddenly. "You're not. I was just… surprised." That doesn't quite seem like enough, though. "It was… unexpected." You continue. You can't quite bring yourself to tell her just how confused you've been about all this. "I overreacted." You tell her, because sometimes you're convinced that she was just kissing you the way a friend would and you read too much into it. "I should have known better than to leave with him."

"He would have figured out some way to get you back, Kate. I wouldn't have let that happen, but when you left willingly… I did what I could."

I never wanted this, and I never wanted you, you told her that night, and it was something your father told you to say, and you believed it at the time.

But you do want her. You want her in your periphery; you want the sense of security you get when she's around.

"Thank you for what you did, even when you thought it wasn't something I wanted." You mean standing up for you in the hallway, for finding you on that street and _coming back for you_, for drawing him away from you, for finding you when you were lost in yourself. You mean letting you know that someone loved you, even if it was in a way you never expected.

She shrugs, like getting thrown around like a ragdoll is just par for the course. Maybe it is for her. There's so much you don't know, and you're afraid to ask. About her, about Ivan. She's told you she loves you since then, but it was so matter-of-fact that you didn't think it had anything to do with her mouth on yours.

"I… really like you, Betty," you tell her, an echo of what she told you at the piano. You can't bring yourself to say what you want to say, but you hope she'll pick up on what you're trying to say. You don't know what you're hoping, really, by saying this. You just… need her to know.

"Like you too," she says gruffly, the way she does when emotions are raised. "You got family here, even if they aren't related to you."

You're a little surprised; you thought she'd notice the opportunity you were giving her. Maybe she hasn't thought about this as much as you have, maybe she just doesn't feel that way about you anymore. So you reach a hand sideways and pat her shoulder.

"Better get to bed," you say, standing.

"You sleeping alright?" She asks over her shoulder, just as you're at the door. You're not really, but you nod anyway. "Good," she says, and turns away. You're in the doorway, hand on the doorknob, and there are so many questions you still want answered but she's turned away from you and you can't… put any of this into words. You're not brave enough to ask.

"Goodnight, Betty," you say and turn the knob.

* * *

Author's note:

Sorry little lesbro, but I'm not good on human sexuality. Show me a nice girl from the 'burbs, and I yawn, show me a closeted Zimbabwe-Canadian junkie that chews your nails when you're asleep and it is on like Donkey Kong. So I don't have any advice to give, other than just be patient. You can't make someone figure it out, and some people never do.

Anyhow, pre-trial tomorrow, nauseated. Last night some dude followed me to my car mumbling obscenities, so that was also fun.


	14. Incomplete lullaby

Chapter 14: Incomplete lullaby

* * *

You're making your way back to your room after an evening dancing with Ivan, music thrumming through your veins along with a few beers.

You trip and out of nowhere swoops Betty, pulling you into her and keeping you upright. She takes two steps backward to counterbalance you but you wind up pressed so tightly against her that when she turns her head, her nose and mouth brush against yours before she can put her head over your shoulder. You can sense her everywhere. It's something you wouldn't think twice of if it the person supporting most of your weight was Gladys, just a mouth meeting yours and pulling away gently but it's not Gladys. It's Betty, and you are thinking twice about it, that and the way her breasts are pressing into you. Your hand falters on her back, drops to her waist, then to her hip, but you don't push her away. You pull her closer, put your chin over her shoulder and the way her shoulder is now pressing against your throat should be making you panic; would be making you panic if this were anyone else but it's safe here, it's quiet here, it's just Betty and Betty would never, ever hurt you. Still, you move your head a little sideways and when your lips brush her neck you can feel the flesh goose pimpling against your face. Her hair, this close, smells like the lilac soap she likes so much.

It's very still here, as though moving will break the spell now, and you're not willing to move because right now you feel safe and you never want to leave. But Betty pulls away first and sighs.

"I'm sorry. I shouldn't have."

"It - it's fine," you tell her, and even though she's nowhere near out of arms reach, just elbow's length away, you already miss her.

The last time she kissed you, you were Kate Andrews. Now you're – well, you don't know who you are, but you're someone who doesn't mind your best friend's mouth brushing against your own by accident, that's for sure. You're someone who wouldn't hurt her by springing away and calling her disgusting.

A door opens down the hall and this time it's Betty springing away from you. You manage to snag one of her hands with one of yours and keep hold of it until you've got your room unlocked and you can shepherd her in in front of you. She waits expectantly in the middle of your room, shuffling awkwardly from foot to foot. You don't have anything to say to her, you just don't want her to leave just yet.

So you don't say anything, just pull off your dress and pull on your nightgown. You sit on your bed and when you turn to look at her, her gaze is directed at an insipid picture on your wall.

"Well?" She asks eventually, when she turns her gaze to you. You're not ready to let go of this feeling of peace that washed over you when she caught you, so you turn your sheets down. You can't ask her to stay, and you can't ask her to watch over you until you fall asleep, so you ask for the next best thing.

"Tell me a story," you say, tucking yourself in under the sheet. She sighs and sits on the bed near your waist, pulling your sheet higher.

"This is a story my grandmother told me, a long time ago," she starts, and launches into a fairy tale about a man disguised as sheep and a Princess hidden underground who sometimes turned into a duck. You're finding it hard to stay awake; her voice is somehow soothing and her cadence is by rote, as though she learnt this by heart many years ago.

You're asleep before she finishes.

* * *

Author's note:

Slogging through police reports and medical records feels like wading through treacle. Between that and getting ready for nationals it's busy here. I'm trying, I really am, to keep the updates coming but there's somewhere specific this was going and the logistics are difficult. So thanks for sticking with me, sorry if it sucks.

The story Betty tells is a German fairy tale called 'The Princess who was hidden underground', and the title of this chapter is a Lisa Mitchell song title.


	15. As makeshift as we are

Chapter 15: As makeshift as we are

* * *

You don't mind being with Ivan in public; in fact, that's the thing you like best about him, dancing with him at the Jewel Box or Sandy Shores, his arm through yours in doorways.

It's when you're alone with him that things are complicated.

There are things you love about Ivan. He's a surprisingly good dancer, and you're getting used to kissing him.

But when his hands touch your face you still flinch away and can't help but remember Betty's fingers dancing clumsily over a piano keyboard or brushing hair from your face, loosening your scarf, fluttering over your throat. Things you can't image Ivan's hands doing. Things you can't imagine being fine with Ivan's hands doing.

But more than that you can't imagine telling him what your life used to be like, or how it changed in a heartbeat shudder-stopped-dropped in an alleyway.

Sometimes you think the only reason you need Betty this badly is because she watched you kill someone and _can still say she loves you_. She's never looked at you in fear, even when you woke from blocking blows in your sleep to find you were striking her, hard, around the chest and shoulder. The only pity she's even given you is for a hangover. She's seen the worst of you but still seems to think better of you than anyone else.

No one else is ever going to know quite the way it was, that night. It's something only you and Betty share. It's not something you want to share with Ivan, or anyone else, ever. Not even Gladys, and you know she'd have your back, listen all the way through and try to understand. Not even Leon, who would no doubt give you some sound advice and make you feel _fixed_. Because, although you didn't think you were, you are a little broken.

You thought you were someone else, and kept trying to find out who you were. But you're the same person you always were, half Marian Rowley, half Kate Andrews. You're just broken. It's almost a relief; there's no room in here for anyone else.

But you're comfortable, when you can be, behind Betty's shut door. You borrow books or magazines from the other girls; anything that's not a Bible and sprawl on her bed with it, Betty propped against the bedhead, neither of you noticing something stupid like shoes until Gladys comes in and makes an unimpressed noise before tugging your shoe laces undone.

You're not comfortable when you're with Ivan. You're dressed up and outside and some part of you would rather be back in the boarding house, reading on Betty's bed.

Because he wants to know you, he wants to know about you and your family and every time he asks a question an answer sticks in your throat. It's hard to keep track of the lies you keep telling him, hard to invent a history of your own, one that would fall apart if you wore something cut a little too low at the back. You're scared he's going to catch you out one day, realize you're not who he thinks you are and that'll be it, this fragile world you built in which you had a normal childhood and didn't kill your father will be shattered. And once he doesn't believe it, you're going to have to stop too. So you just keep track of what you say; you have some notes to remind you in case you slip up. Betty flipped through them once and made a noncommittal humming noise. She disapproves of you lying to Ivan but she'd never say so; she thinks it isn't her place. And the longer this goes on, the more you wonder how long you'll be able to keep it up.

* * *

Author's note: I could be getting more study done if the security guard would stop kicking me out just because he wants to go home.  
Title from the titular The Tragically Hip song.


	16. You're a little late, I'm already torn

Chapter 16: You're a little late, I'm already torn

* * *

Betty's pale and quiet for a few days; you can hear her and Gladys talking seriously behind Betty's door a few evenings in a row but try to pretend you don't mind being left out of this. Until one night, there's a timid knock on your door and Betty's there.

"Can I come in?" She asks, and you step away from the door, closing it behind her. Her feet are bare and her toes are somehow touching. "I'm late." She says quietly, while you're still turned away from her. You look to your clock on the bureau; it's a little after nine, but she's knocked on your door later than this. "Not that kind of late," she says, and when you turn back to her she's staring at her own toes. There's a childlike quality to her tonight, in her too-big man-pajamas and tousled hair and slightly lost look about her.

"Late?" You ask, stupidly, for you realize a moment later what she meant. Late. Betty just nods.

"Late," she says again. Now you're both looking at her feet.

"Ivan?" You ask cautiously. She looks at you with a dubious face, as though she can't believe you're asking.

"Seen me with anyone else?" She asks, and you quickly shake your head. You didn't mean to imply that you thought she was easy. And thinking back, you've never known her to date.

"I just mean…"

"That he's your boyfriend. Yeah. Sorry about that." She rubs the back of her head with her hand and it's disarming.

"Are you sure?"

"Gladys asked around, I'm seeing someone tomorrow." She says shortly.

"To… get rid of it?" You ask in surprise.

"No, to find out."

"Are you going to…" She sighs heavily, sits herself on your bed. You join her, fiddling with your dressing gown.

"Hadn't thought about it," she says too casually, letting you know what all those talks with Gladys have been about. You think back to the bruises Ivan's mouth left on her neck and you have to stave off a jealousy you can't name the cause of.

"Have you told him?" You ask, trying to sound normal.

"Nothing to tell, yet." She says, maddeningly calmly.

You're torn between the fact that you're upset that Betty slept with _your boyfriend_ even though he was hers at the time, and the fact that you've been with him longer than Betty was and he hasn't even strayed below the belt with you.

She sighs again.

"I just thought I should tell you. We used to tell each other everything. I miss that."

"I miss you," you tell her without thinking, then meet her eyes.

"I haven't gone anywhere," she tells you, putting a hand near where yours is resting on the sheet.

"You did, though," you tell her, eyeing her hand.

"I thought that was what you wanted," she says, following your gaze.

"I didn't want _that_," you tell her, and leave her to interpret that herself, because you still don't really know what you want from her.

"What _did_ you want?" She asks, and she's being as frank as she can and she's braver than you because you've wanted to ask her that so many times.

"I don't know," you tell her quietly. You slip your hand over hers. "But if you are, you know, _late,_ I'm not angry."

"Why not?"

"It's Ivan. Who could resist?" And you don't know if it's hopeful thinking but you think her smile might be as forced as yours. You run what you hope is a soothing thumb over the back of her wrist.

"Just, never thought this would happen to me," she says with a self-deprecating snort.

"You were going to wait for marriage?" You ask, a little naively, and you're rewarded with another snort.

"I wasn't going to… _to_ at all." She says, turning her hand over in yours, palm to palm, fingers threading through yours. "That wasn't… something that was going to happen." And this is the closest you've come to talking about what she is, so you feel like you have to be very careful here because every word seems to have a different meaning now. There's a code you're both speaking and both half-understand, but you both know there's something more than the words either of you are saying.

"You've always thought that?" You ask, and she nods, hair hanging over her face as she looks back down at her feet again.

"Never saw myself getting married, never saw myself with kids. Never saw myself with a man," she says slowly, and peeks through her hair to see your reaction. You don't really have one for her to watch, so she relaxes, shakes her hair back out of her face, hand tightening on yours.

"Do you want me to go with you?" You ask her suddenly.

"Huh?"

"To the doctor," you clarify. "With you."

She shakes her head and pulls her hand out of yours, getting to her feet. "I'd better go. I just… thought you should know."

"I'm glad you told me," you tell her, because you are. You can't imagine going through something like this without her, and now you know why she went to Gladys first. She just smiles wryly and shuts the door behind her.

* * *

Author's note: So this is where this is going. Sorry, I know we already had the 'out-of-wedlock' storyline with Lorna and Marco and I know this is a cliché but this is where it's going.

Title from Natalie Imbruglia song 'Torn'.


	17. Wonderwall

Chapter 17: Wonderwall

* * *

You find yourself looking at Betty differently the next day; specifically at her belly. You're trying not to, but you know you are because she keeps looking up, puzzled, when she feels her eyes on you, before zeroing in on you and trying to shoot a grin your way that doesn't quite reach her eyes. You don't want to cause an accident so you keep your head down, even when Gladys and Betty head off before the shift is over. Gladys returns though, and the look she gives you when you finally look up is one of deep consternation.

You can't even look at Ivan all day, and luckily his lunch break is at a different time to yours today because you can't think of anything you could say to him that isn't some sort of accusation.

* * *

Betty's door is shut when you get home, so you give it half an hour before tentatively knocking.

There's a surly 'yeah' from behind the door so you push it open. Betty's lying on her bed on her right side, facing away from the door, arms around herself.

"Oh," you say, because while it looks like this is bad news, you're not sure which news in this case would _be_ the bad news.

"Don't just stand there, shut the door," she says. You do as she says and step toward the bed.

"So," you start, and you're not sure how to finish that sentence so you just let it hang there between you for Betty to interpret.

"Won't find out 'till later," she answers the unspoken question.

"Oh," you say again.

"If I just _knew_," she says, her voice breaking on the last word. You don't think twice before you climb behind her on the bed, but you think it over before stretching a careful arm over her. She latches onto it thankfully, pulls it to her chest and you pretend you can't tell she's crying from where you're lying behind her.

When she's asleep, your hand wanders meaninglessly up and down her arm. You pause at the fingers of her left hand. There's a ring on one finger, the ring finger. You gingerly lift her hand, careful not to wake her, and you've seen Gladys' engagement ring enough times to recognize it but it makes you inexplicably upset. You slide it off her hand and place it on her bedside table.

When you put her arm back down next to her belly, you can't help but run your hand over it and wonder. She makes a whiffling noise, rolls over and pulls herself into you by the front of your dress. You're startled at the proximity of her head to your neck, but she's asleep and warm and you _really should_ go back to your own room, your own bed but you're warm where she's resting against you and you don't want to wake her.

* * *

Author's note: I had a few notes about 'good characterization', and I thank you but I feel like I'm cheating. I was strangled – hanged, rather - a few years ago and the way I wrote Kate – that's strangulation-style PTSD 101.

Anyhow, there might be another chapter today? See how it goes. Title from the Oasis song.


	18. Teenage Dream

Chapter 18: Teenage dream

* * *

You're on your back, when you wake up, and Betty is lying on her side, watching you. It's late; it must be late, it feels late, but the light is on so you can't be sure. Her hand is close to your hair, like she was stroking it before you woke up.

"I'd better go," you say, not moving, because although you have the feeling that staying is a bad idea, it feels right. Her hand runs through your hair but she doesn't say anything so you stay there, comfortable. Her hand comes to rest on your cheek, and she rests on an elbow. You shift to face her and she brings her other hand up too.

"You know, don't you, what you mean to me?" She asks, cradling your face to the light.

You nod as much as you can in the confines you have.

"You love me. Betty, I love you too," you tell her and, and despite the worry written all over her face there's a softness to the way she's looking at you now. "You're the best friend I ever had," you tell her, and her face drops.

"I'm not going to cast the first stone here, Betty," you tell her, and it must have called something within her to act because her face is getting closer and closer and you have to refocus but you don't pull back; the pillow is behind you, you have nowhere else to go. You can tell yourself that, but you can't fool your own heartbeat, speeding up again of its own volition as she pauses just far enough from your face that you can see she's still hesitant about this. You raise your head a little and apparently that was the signal she was waiting for because she's kissing you now and you wonder how you could ever compare Ivan to this; she tastes like stale tobacco but she's soft like velvet, or some other fabric Gladys would own. There's no stubble, there's just soft skin and it takes longer than it really should to notice her hands are resting on the collar of your dress; the pressure on your throat should be making this uncomfortable; this whole thing should be uncomfortable but your hand snakes up between you and snags a handful of her shirt to make sure she's not going to pull away.

But she does.

"You have a boyfriend," she points out. "And I'm not going to do wrong by him twice."

You meet her apparently conscience-stricken eyes and nod, sit up, bring your feet to the floor and brush yourself down. You're the one that should have said that, not her. You're the one that has the boyfriend. You're the one that isn't interested in the girl in the bed. But when her hand brushes your arm and she says she is sorry, you tell her not to be.

Because although you don't quite understand what just happened, you're not sorry it did happen. Even when you think about Ivan, because it's not something he hasn't done.

* * *

Author's note: there was going to be this yesterday but after my exam was cancelled one of the boys was sitting practically on top of me for the rest of the day asking 'what are you doing, what are you doing?' and then in the lab when he was done he pulled out my network phone and the whole system went down and when I got home the inverter on the laptop crapped itself so it was all very futile. But here it is! My best mate just bought a spare screen and is making coffee. All better.

Title from a Katy Perry song.


	19. Frozen hands and feet

Chapter 19: The difference between frozen hands and feet.

* * *

It's hard to sleep for the rest of the night; there's too much to think about. You didn't expect to react like that if Betty ever tried to kiss you again. You expected to be able to push her away, but instead you pulled her closer. You didn't expect it to feel like that.

Last time it didn't feel right.

This time it didn't feel wrong.

You don't know what's happening to you.

* * *

Ivan tries to kiss you in the cafeteria at lunch but you duck away, grab him by the hand and tell him you have to talk. You can see Betty anxiously watching and shaking her head over his shoulder, so you tell him you'll meet him at the Jewel Box after shift.

* * *

He goes to kiss you when you meet at the Jewel Box, and he looks annoyed when you pull away again.

"What's wrong?" he asks, running a hand down your arm.

"Betty," you say.

"What about her?" He asks. It takes a while to answer.

"Did you love her?" You eventually ask. He sighs and shrugs.

"I guess," he says eventually. "Why?" You look him in the eyes.

"Do you still love her?"

"Of course not. I'm with you. I… I really like you, Kate." And the smile he gives you when he looks at you makes you feel terrible. Like you've betrayed him. He used to love her, but when it came down to it last night, you were the one who had to take care of her. What if he's this flippant once you're not together, and you're late.

"What if…" you start, but you trail off. It's not your place to talk about this. It's Betty's. "What if I wasn't who I say I am," you finish. "What if I were someone different? A murderer or a thief."

"But you're not. You're someone who I kind of…" he trails off and you don't want to hear the rest of his sentence. He finishes it anyway. "You're someone who I kind of love," he finishes, and leans in to kiss you. You let him, and it should be everything you wanted but you can't stop thinking about Betty and the way her shoulders shook against your chest last night.

The look on Betty's face over Ivan's shoulder as she walks into the bar is quickly followed by an expressionless mask and Gladys' hand resting softly on her arm. You look away and pull away. Ivan's smiling ecstatically and you're frozen inside. Betty orders a beer and before you can stop yourself you say something very stupid.

"Should you be drinking that?" You ask her, turning half-away from Ivan. She freezes, hand halfway to the glass.

"Why can't she have a beer? You want one?" He asks, oblivious.

"Have mine," she says, pushing hers over to you. She pulls out her cigarettes instead and stares you down as she lights one.

"Betty…" you start, but she ignores you and orders a coke instead. Gladys joins Betty at the bar, smiles dubiously at you and takes Betty's cigarette from her fingers. She sighs and slides the pack over to Gladys. Ivan looks uncomfortable; after all, you were just talking about her. He gestures toward the dance floor and you go to dance with him but you can't help but feel to be in an awkward position.

If she's pregnant, you don't want her to have to do it alone. You want her to have Ivan to hold on to.

But that means you have to let go of him first, and you're not ready to do that yet.

* * *

Author's note:

Laptop is colorfully-borked, I put together a netbook from bits but didn't match the screws so it's temperamental.

Reviews welcomed, trying not to type myself into a corner.

Title from the Tegan and Sara song 'Frozen'.


	20. Brick

Chapter 20: She's a brick and I'm drowning slowly

* * *

Sometimes it feels like Ivan is trying to possess you. He walked you home and wanted to walk you to your door but you're wary because the way the other girls use that phrase makes it seem like it means something different.

Betty's possessive of you too, sure. But it's because she wants the best for _you,_ not because she wants to control you. But you don't think you object to her possessiveness. You feel safe with her and it's only since you met her that you started to feel safe. The fact that the trailer had a lock on it wasn't comforting because it meant you were locked in with what you were scared of.

You don't place much faith in locks, really. Or doors, or walls, flimsy wooden structures that stand no chance against anger.

Any faith you do have is placed in Betty.

There's something about the way that Betty stands that makes you think she's bigger than she is. Stronger. Tougher. Perpetually at ease. She slouches through doorways and crosses her legs at the knee.

But not tonight. Tonight she's hunched into herself, leaning against your door when you get home. She looks shrunken, somehow. All her bravado has gone.

"You didn't say anything to Ivan, did you?" She asks, pushing herself away from the door as you unlock it. You shake your head and she follows you into your room. "Don't. It's not his problem."

"Of course it is," you start, but she cuts you off.

"It's not your problem either. It's mine. I was stupid and I got caught out. Whatever happens, that's my problem. You tell Ivan, next thing you know he'll be doing the honorable thing and that's the last thing any of us want."

"But Betty," you start, but she cuts you off again.

"No. You've got what you want, and I've got a chance I never thought I'd have. Just… leave it."

"I couldn't. Not knowing that it's his," you tell her, setting your handbag on the bed and settling in front of the mirror, pulling hair pins out of hair that seems inconceivable to have been brushed only a few hours ago. If Betty is… _late_, you can't bring yourself to even think the word, you don't think you could bear to even look at Ivan. You don't want him if you're taking him away from Betty, from a family that needs him. And part of you, part of you that you don't really want to acknowledge, would be relieved because as much as you like Ivan, you weren't ready to hear him tell you that he loved you tonight.

It didn't make you feel anything like it did when Betty told you the same thing. And you almost hate yourself for that.

"I don't _want _Ivan, though. You can have him. He makes you happy." She looks up sharply, catches your eye in the mirror. "He does make you happy, doesn't he?" She asks, and you nod without thinking because you _do_ enjoy being with Ivan. "Good, "she says, sounding determined, like she's made up her mind about something. "Good," she says again, shrinking further into herself, and you want to grab her by the arms and shake her until she fluffs out like a tomcat. You don't know this woman, this quiet, tiny woman. "Then everything's… good. See? Just… leave it," she says again, almost to herself this time.

"You know I can't," you tell her, and she slumps still further. "He deserves to know, even if you aren't…. who's to say I won't end up the same way, in a few months? Then where will we be?"

"You'd make sure you married him first, though," she says, slightly bitterly.

"I'm not going to marry him at all," you tell her, surprising the both of you and her shoulders straighten, just a little in the mirror. You can see her form a question, but she shuts it down before she can ask it. "So you can have him," you tell her, bringing your brush firmly over a knot that won't break up.

"I don't want him, and shouldn't he be involved, somehow, before you palm him off to me."

"You're the one that doesn't want to tell him." The three of you seem irretrievably entwined, only at this point Betty's a brick, pulling Ivan and you into the undertow of the mess of her life. Or maybe the other way around. Like this mass of hair that you can't untangle. Tied together, ready to drown.

And in your mind you can see Betty and Ivan and several small children playing in a backyard and all you can see in your future is cleaning up dead flowers in a church every Sunday after the service.

"I can live a lie. If I have to. Seems you already are," she says glibly, rifling through your notebook again. You really should keep it somewhere other than on your dresser, but Betty and Gladys are the only ones that come in here.

"What was it like?" You ask suddenly, then turn away and blush. You can practically hear the smirk in her voice behind you, so you know she knows what you mean.

"Don't see what all the fuss is about," she says, and there's a hint of swagger back in her voice that makes you feel safe here.

"So, we're not telling Ivan," you confirm, trying to wipe your mind's eye of the images that just flitted through it. Betty in the back of Ivan's friend's car, Betty breathlessly letting Ivan kiss her – these are things you don't want to think about.

Betty just nods and lets herself out.

* * *

Author's note: Sorry about the wait. Full tack at the mo. Election next week (if you're at all interested in Aussie politics, watch the juice's Game Of Polls - accurate political coverage in rap form).

Reviews welcome.

Title from a Ben Folds Five song.


	21. Pure Morning

Chapter 21: Pure Morning

* * *

Betty comes swaggering into your room the next morning.

"Was just late, is all," she says, casually, as though you both haven't been deliberating for the last few days the course your lives might have to take. You let out a surprised laugh and Betty comes forward to dance you around the room and into the hall, through a hoard of surprised girls, and into her room.

"That certainly makes things easier," you say, a little breathlessly, falling into her a little when she lets go of your arms. She's a little late catching you but she does catch you; you watch her jaw clench and she rests her forehead against yours.

You're kind of frozen, forehead pressed to hers and your eyes close. You're waiting; for what you don't quite know, but you do expect something to happen. It doesn't so you tilt your head a little. Nothing happens again, so you open your eyes to meet Betty's slightly watery ones as she brings the back of her fingers across your cheek, then places her hand on the side of your face, fingers nearly in your ear. She's blurry, this close.

"You're so good to me," she says, and you have to raise a hand to wipe moisture from her cheek. She buries her face in your hand, kisses your palm. Her lips feel nicer than they should.

"You don't treat me too shabby, yourself," you say, because you don't like to see Betty cry. She gives you a sloppy smile and you pull her into you, pretending not to notice when she uses the shoulder of your dress to wipe her face.

"I'm just so relieved," she mumbles into your neck, "you must be too."

* * *

You go out with Ivan again that night, and the way he fiddles with the buttons of your dress in a darkened booth with a knowing smile is enough to make you angry.

"Betty," you start, and he gets that impatient look he always does when you bring her up.

"What about her?"

"Betty was late," you tell him, and the way all the blood drains from his face is almost laughable.

"Was?" He eventually asks. You nod. "Wait. You think it's my fault?"

"You seen her with any other men?" He shakes his head slowly, like he's still trying to figure it out.

"Wait, Marco!" He says thankfully and the look you give him is so skeptical that he lowers his head again. "You said was, right," he says, a little desperately. "As in, not anymore. So it's fine, isn't it?" And the way he won't look at you lets you know that even he doesn't believe he's asking that.

"And if she was still late? What would you have done?" You know Betty was trying to take all the blame for it, but the way she looked at you this morning, you've never seen her look that way at Ivan.

"But Kate, we're not together. I don't feel that way about her anymore. I love you," he says, "and I guess we're just lucky that it turned out that way."

"But you used to love her. What if we broke up and I was late, Ivan?"

"We'd have to, you know, actually do something before that could happen," he says, a little grumpily and you just stand up and walk out of the club.

"Kate!" You can hear him walking behind you but you won't turn around. You keep walking and he trots to keep up with you. "I didn't even know! How was I supposed to know? She broke up with me! Kate!" He grabs your arm and turns you to face him. "She should have told me. You shouldn't have told me. She should have."

"Because it's that easy, telling your ex-boyfriend when he's dating your best friend. Ivan, she was going to keep it from you. Forever, if I know her."

"And you think I'm the only one responsible?" He asks, and you can't say anything even though you have a valid argument so you shake your head.

"No, but I do think you could have been a little more responsible."

"We used protection," he hisses, eyes darting around to see if anyone's listening.

"The best protection is abstinence," you tell him, half-remembering something a travelling preacher said with his hand on your knee. You can tell Ivan's trying to think of something he can say to that. It's been a big shock to him, you know that.

"What if we were married?" He blurts out suddenly. "Then it'd be alright, wouldn't it? Would you marry me, Kate?" He asks, and you've been waiting for a proposal since you were a child but this isn't right; he didn't even get down on one knee and when he goes to, you pull him up by his cardigan because the street is filthy and his pants are nice.

"I'm sorry Ivan," you tell him eventually, "but I don't think we should see each other anymore." You lean in to kiss his cheek before walking back to the rooming house by yourself.

* * *

Author's note: You guys have been so patient. Thank you. It's so busy here; I keep falling asleep in the non-explodey classes and Nationals are next Thursday. They paired me with another chick so we wouldn't distract any dudes but then she was typing from behind me and I couldn't configure my way out of a paper bag so it could be interesting.

Anyhow, here's to six years sober. Woo.

* * *

A friend in need's a friend indeed,  
A friend who bleeds is better,  
My friend confessed she passed the test,  
And we will never sever.

Title from the titular Placebo song.


	22. Suitcase full of memories

Chapter 22: Suitcase full of memories

* * *

The rest of the week Ivan alternates between giving you and Betty puppy-dog eyes. Betty shoots confused looks your way but she doesn't say anything to you, and you don't think she's said anything to Ivan

You haven't told her yet, that you broke up with Ivan. You don't want to tell her, because you don't want her to think it's her fault.

It's not her fault. She was just a convenient excuse. Ivan's hands had started wandering and you didn't know to make him slow down without getting him to stop entirely. You couldn't tell him that he was moving too fast and there were a lot of other things you could never tell him. So it's better this way. You don't have to lie to him anymore, and he can go find someone who's not a lying fraud.

You're not who you say you are, and you don't think you can be with someone who doesn't know who you are.

You also don't think you can tell anyone. Ever.

You couldn't drink your way out of it. You wish you'd listened to Betty now, you wish you'd told the police while your neck was still swollen enough for them to believe your version of events. Because then you'd be facing the consequences of your actions, and you'd have some closure. Coming forward now would be suspicious.

Every night your mind follows the curvature of his fall. Even in death he won't leave you alone.

No one would believe it was an accident.

You're not sure if even Betty thinks it was an accident.

Sometimes you're not sure yourself.

* * *

So on Friday night you get your notebook of lies and your ashtray and start steadily setting light to its pages, one by one. Betty probably smells the smoke from the hallway, because she comes in after one knock without waiting for an answer. She snatches the notebook out of your hand before you can set alight another page.

"You might need it again someday. You know, when you start dating again," she says, turning the book over in her hands. She knows about Ivan, then. You did tell Gladys, and those two are close these days.

"I won't be dating again. I can't lie any more. Not about my past, not about my father." She puts the notebook back in your lap.

"I know what it's like to lie about who you are. It gets easier, and you already have someone who knows, that hasn't walked away from you."

"And who are you? What lies do you lead?" She sighs, pulls her cigarettes from her pants, lights one and offers you one. You take it, brushing your fingers against hers.

"I'm someone who's in love with someone they shouldn't be," she says, a little while later, puffing agitatedly at her barely-lit cigarette. You choke on yours a little, before formulating a coherent sentence.

"Why shouldn't you love them?" You prompt her, purposely excluding gendered adjectives. She snorts, holds the lighter to the tip again and plays along. You expect her to bring it into the open; that she's in love with a woman, possibly you. You feel like you're peeling back layers of her and she's raw when she's honest.

"Because they'll never love me back and I'm just making myself miserable," she says, scuffing the carpet with her bare feet.

"You don't know that," You tell her. "Things change. People change."

"Not that much," she says shortly.

"If you were a man…" you start, and then stop because there's no right way to end that.

"But I'm not." She says, sighing and sitting next to you. You slide a hand onto her arm.

"I'm glad you're not though," you tell her, and her smile warms you inside.

Love does not delight in evil, but rejoices in the truth. There's nothing evil about Betty and the truth is that you do love her. She's not a man, and you do love her.

You can't reconcile Kate Andrews with Marian Rowley because Marian Rowley has a lot of unrealistic expectations about the world and has no life experience, and she thinks what you feel for Betty is wrong.

Maybe it is.

But maybe it isn't.

Before you can deliberate any further, Gladys bursts in with a bottle of wine and you slip your hand from Betty's forearm. Betty plucks the notebook from your lap and puts it on top of your dresser again.

"Here's to the good news," says Gladys, pouring a few glasses.

"Here's to being able to drink again," says Betty, tilting her first one straight down and holding her glass out for a refill. Gladys thinks she's being subtle when she asks Betty if she was interrupting anything but Betty just waves the question off and lights another cigarette. Gladys' eyes rest questioningly on you for a moment, before she pours you a glass.

"Here's to…" you trail off because everything you have to be thankful for is in this room. A door that locks, a rewritten past and people that know who you really are. "Here's to new beginnings," you finish.

* * *

Author's note: friend came out to me; no longer only gay in the village, which is awes. It's cocky mating season – no means no means nothing to a cockatoo determined to fulfill their biological imperative with their human life-partner.

It's sad but true; women distract engineers. Trust me; I'm an engineer.

Title from that song. You know. Time after time. By Cyndi Lauper.


	23. Moving Pictures, Silent Films

Chapter 23: Moving Pictures, Silent Films

* * *

Betty's an awkward girl, all elbows and knees, but the moments when she's graceful more than make up for that. She dances better than Ivan, you think, as she twirls you around the room under Gladys' slightly disapproving eye. When Betty ducks out, Gladys steadies herself on your arm and looks at you, as serious as you've ever known her to be.

"You hurt that girl, you won't even know what hit you. But it'll be me. That hit you." Gladys is a little tipsy, but you catch her point. You just nod and light her cigarette.

"I don't intend to hurt her, Glad."

"Well, what do you intend? Because she's hurt, either way." And you know what Gladys is saying is true because you saw the way she felt earlier tonight, lighting her cigarette clumsily. By not letting Betty know, one way or another, you're still hurting her.

"I don't know." Gladys scrutinizes you a little longer before nodding.

"When did you grow up so much, Kate," she asks, clumsily pushing hair behind your ear. You stiffen, because you can't tell her it was the instant your father told you your mother was dead, and she nods again. "Whatever happened, I'm so glad we got you back. Betty was a wreck."

You thought of Betty a lot, alone in the trailer. Betty and the boys, and your mother. Everything you'd lost. That look on her face as you backed away from her in the hallway. The look of horrified fear when you pulled away from her and called her disgusting. You thought it'd make her life easier if you disappeared; she could find someone more suitable to hoist her affections on, but when she yelled about having a boyfriend, when you met her boyfriend – your stomach sank.

You thought about that little house, in the movie, the way you never noticed you'd taken her hands in yours until she pulled away. You thought about her getting you through a pornographer's photo-shoot for your security clearance, and how comfortable she made you feel with all that broken skin up for view.

You thought about all the things she did for you that she didn't need to do. And you started questioning how you'd never noticed. That maybe you hadn't wanted to notice, that maybe if neither of you mentioned it, it could just be… what it was.

"Sorry," you say eventually, looking down at your near-empty glass. "He said mother was ill. I thought I was needed."

"You ran away," Gladys says blithely. You look up and meet her eyes, nod, and look back down. "You were scared." You nod again and sit on the bed. Gladys joins you, takes your wine glass and sets both on the bedside table. She stubs out her nearly-done cigarette in the ashtray, momentarily looking confused at the paper remnants there. She pushes your hair back out of your face again and grasps your chin so you have to look at her. "So. Do you love her?"

Your first response is to nod, so you do. Gladys gives you what feels like her first smile since you got back.

"But…" you start, and Gladys shrugs. "She's the best friend I ever had," you continue, "and I don't quite know how." Gladys takes a moment to work that through in her head, then nods. She leans forward quickly and presses her mouth against yours before pulling away to gauge your reaction. You scrunch your nose, but you don't push her away.

"When she kissed you, did it feel anything like that?" She asks, almost scientifically, as though it's a justification. You shake your head.

"Nothing like that," you tell her. Gladys looks a little disappointed but also pleased with herself, like she's figured something out. "It felt like the most real thing that had ever happened," you tell her, "as though everything else was a black and white silent film then suddenly it was a technicolour talkie. It burnt my brain."

"So, nothing like that, then," Gladys huffs. "Maybe if I try again," she starts, and makes another dodge at your face, but you push her away, giggly from wine. You end up lying crosswise on your backs on the bed, side by side.

"I'm glad you're back. And back to normal." She says, putting her head clumsily on your shoulder. The room is spinning pleasantly from the wine and your eyes half-shut of their own accord and from near your ear you hear Gladys' deep, regular breathing and that's how Betty finds you when she comes back. She raises a quizzical eyebrow but says nothing, just pours another glass of wine and watches from your chair, ankle resting on one knee, the way she does. It looks so comfortable when she does it but you've never been able to get it right. You feel clumsy, and the way she does it is almost graceful.

When Betty lights a cigarette you hold out your hand and you have to sit up to smoke it because your lungs are refusing to work under these circumstances. You dislodge Gladys with your coughing and it seems to have roused her a little. She reaches a hand toward you, then curls into the space you left with a contented hum.

"Staying over, Princess?" Betty asks, and Gladys makes another sleepy noise.

"I'm in no condition to drive, Bug."

You've never heard Gladys call Betty that, but it seems fluent, like it's been going on awhile. You're just glad to be included tonight.

* * *

Author's note: I figured Gladys was due some ladytime.

Thank you for the beautiful reviews. It really makes my day.

Title from the Great Lake Swimmers haunting song 'Moving Pictures, Silent Films.'

* * *

Election day! STRAYA! Wikileaks Party! Pirate Party! Sex Party! Dinosaurs and Titanic Party!

Yeah. Australian politics even sound like a joke.


	24. Running up that hill

Chapter 24: Running up that hill

* * *

You and Betty briefly discuss where to put Gladys for the night, and Betty suggests that your room is less suspicious so the two of you drag her so she's lying the right way in the bed. You tuck a blanket in over Gladys and she makes a sleepy noise. You're not sure if she's asleep, and you're not sure how you can pick up the conversation you were having with Betty before.

If she were a man, you would never have got to know her like this. But if she were a man, you would feel better about the way you feel about her. She throws herself back into the chair and you perch on the edge of the bed, facing her. She lights another cigarette and you take it from her. She rolls her eyes and lights another.

"I broke up with Ivan," you tell her, eventually.

"Gladys told me. Wondered why he was looking at you like that. Not so fun when it's aimed at you, huh?" You nod. "So you told him about me?" You nod again. "Well, that'd account for the way he was looking at me too."

"I'm sorry. I just couldn't think of any other way." Betty just shrugs. 'I've been meaning to for a while. Break up with him, that is. Just couldn't think of a reason." She shrugs again and you can't tell if she's upset. You want to tell her she's the reason. You want to say that now you don't have a boyfriend it'd probably be fine if she kissed you again. You want to say that you're glad she's so happy she's not pregnant. You want to say a lot of things but she gets to her feet.

"Night, Kate," she says, and pats your shoulder.

You've tried not to think about the way you react to Betty's touch, because you don't understand how you can react like that to her. You've never heard it spoken about, this same-gendered thing, not even outside the church, not even in the church. But your father thought it was wrong.

He also thought that holding you underwater for smiling at a boy was right, so you try not to give his opinion any weight at all. He can't have it both ways.

You called her disgusting because you could still feel your father's eyes on you then, you knew how you should react. But since then, since you've been well, free, you've had time to think about it. Everything she did was based on those feelings, and everything she did was good.

If kissing her means she won't leave your side again, then you'll kiss her. That you seem to enjoy it scares you a little, but you know for sure that you were not seduced.

It was something you wanted. You wanted someone to love you, and the person who does that best happens to be Betty. Who you love.

* * *

Betty shut the door behind her when she left, so you dress for bed. There's too much to think about to do it now, while you're still pleasantly buzzing from wine. You have to move Gladys over a little, and she curls into you when you slide in beside her. It makes it hard to relax, her body so close to yours. You've only ever slept with Betty, that one time, and you're not used to the intimacy of it, the way Gladys' breath warms your chest under her head, the way you can feel the dull thump of her heartbeat echoing through her body, the way she smells like cigarette smoke and wine and violets. It takes a long time to relax from but when you do it's quite nice, it's warm and comforting to have someone you trust so close while you sleep.

The way she's nuzzling your neck drags you out of your half-asleep state. It's put you on guard, so you're surprised when all that happens is a kiss on your chin and a sleepy "Night, Bug" from Gladys.

Gladys thinks you're Betty. Why would she think you're Betty? Maybe that's where Betty has been spending her evenings, in Gladys' hotel room, curled up with her like this. Gladys settles again, you can tell she's asleep, but you're too upset and confused to sleep. You get up and put your dressing gown on.

* * *

Author's note: This is kind of strange but I have no recollection of that last chapter. I know I must have written it but I went to bed 3pm Friday, woke up 4pm Saturday, voted, Butter-Lettuce owl-onesie redhead-cuddle election party and when I got home I saw the update. I definitely wrote it because it's named after my favorite song so I checked the text file and it was in there and saved at 5am Saturday but I don't remember anything about it, or even waking up.

So I think I'll be changing my pain medication.

Title from the Kate Bush song "Running up that hill (Deal with God)".


	25. You were the only one left there

Chapter 25: You were the only one left there

* * *

You're sick of waiting for Betty to make some sort of move; she's withdrawn into herself again and you miss her. You have to swig the rest of the bottle of wine and you pace your room with a cigarette before you can bring yourself to knock on her door. She answers in her pajamas, and you push your way in past her, pushing her up against the door, reaching one hand over her shoulder to lock it behind her. She looks cornered, but well, you have cornered her.

"Be not afraid," you almost whisper to yourself, but Betty thinks you're talking to her and leans in a little closer.

"Afraid of what?" She asks.

"This," you say, and you lean forward again, just before you reach her lips she jerks her head back so hard it hits the door with a thump.

You have her pressed against her door now, and you're pressed against her. You won't give up, no matter what. It took everything you had to get to this point and you're never going to be brave enough to do this again. This close her heartbeat thumps its way into your chest, transmits to your own heart as you pick up its beat.

"Well? Tell me what you want from me Betty." Betty just shakes her head. "Don't you want this?" You ask, because she looks scared more than anything.

"Not like this." You rest the hand that isn't still on the door on her hip; you can feel the shape of her bone beneath the flesh and you can feel a blush sliding up to your face. Betty's tough so the softness of her beneath your hand is a surprise to you. She's managed to get her hands on your shoulders but she can't quite bring herself to push you away.

"I don't know how else," you tell her, because you've been trying to figure out how you could let her know that kissing her might be something you might be interested in and you still don't know how you could possibly phrase it without making an idiot out of yourself.

"How 'bout sober?" She says awkwardly. "So I know you won't blame me for it in the morning."

"Please Betty, if I don't do this now, I don't think I can try again." You can see her waver, soften a little around the eyes, but she tightens her mouth; you can literally see her steel her resolve.

"And I can't if you're like this," she tells you flatly. "You want to try this, you gotta be sober, and you gotta tell me that this is what you want. Because I don't think it is." And with that she gathers the strength to push you away from her, not hard, just enough so she can slip past you. She lights a slightly shaky cigarette and eyes you warily. She goes to sit on the bed, then thinks better of it and turns her chair backward so she can rest her forearms on the back of it and squint at you through gusts of smoke.

You take a seat on her bed. You didn't expect her to react this way, you were expecting her to leap at the chance of this. It almost feels like a rejection, and you're surprised at how much that hurts.

"I don't know what I want," you tell her quietly, "But everything I want involves you, in some way."

* * *

Author's note:

Title from Paul McDermott's song 'Shut up and kiss me'


	26. Shake it out

Chapter 26: Shake it out

* * *

She's kind of beautiful like this, enveloped in smoke and agitated.

"You're the only place that feels safe to me, Betty, and I've never felt safe before."

"Don't suppose you would have," she says, "considering."

"And I don't think I can tell anyone what happened, but you already know, and you don't hate me for it. You were there, and you don't hate me for it."

"So, because you can't tell anyone else, you may as well shack up with me then?" Betty asks, and the anger you've seen so many times directed against other people is finally aimed at you. You're taken aback, because she never speaks to you this way. You meant to confess to her tonight, one way or another, and this vitriol in her voice is starting to worry you.

"No, I didn't mean…" You start, but she cuts you off.

"Just because you can't keep up with your own lies you think you can do _that_ to me because I already know the truth?"

"That's not what I meant!" You say, louder than you should, and Betty glowers at you a little through the smoke. You get up and open a window, despite the chilly night air. "You said you were in love with me," you say quietly. "Why are you being like this? You know that's not what I meant."

"Who's to say you're the unobtainable person I love?" She says defiantly.

"Who else could you have been talking about? What, Aikens, Marco, Gladys?" You ask, and at Gladys' name Betty's eyes flicker to yours, then dart away to stare at a blank wall. "Oh." You feel like you've shrunk to a few inches tall. You thought you were both finally on the same page, earlier that night, that you were finally talking about this unspoken thing but it seems she was just… toying with you.

"I just want to make you happy," you say finally, hesitating before putting a hand on her shoulder.

"You should want to make yourself happy," she says, and shakes your hand off of her. You can tell it's cost her a lot to say that.

"I don't know how, anymore," you say, quieter than before.

"Well, until you can make yourself happy, there's no point trying to make someone else happy. See what I mean?" Betty says, reaching over and stubbing out her cigarette. "And unlike some people, I need my beauty sleep, so if you can see yourself out, that'd be just grand." She doesn't look at you, and when you turn to shut the door behind you, she still won't meet your eyes.

* * *

When you slip back into your bed, Gladys rolls into you, puts her arm over your stomach and it takes a while to relax, to get used to her hand curled around your ribs, shake off a seething jealousy at the thought that this is how Betty spends some of her nights.

* * *

Author's note: Sorry about the delay. Got a pinched nerve earlier in the week but now my spine pain is different and different is good. Laptop started tying backwards like demon virus. Nationals was awesome, results next week. Sorry about the sombre tone of this chapter too.

Title from Florence and the Machine's song "Shake it out"

And it's hard to dance with the devil on your back, so shake him off.


	27. Mother of gloom

Chapter 27: the mother of gloom

* * *

You don't get a lot of sleep that night. For one thing, Gladys snores, and for another your mind is stuck in a cycle of confusion and disappointment.

If Betty is… over you, if she… likes Gladys now, the way she used to like you, you don't know what to do. And that Gladys is so obviously comfortable sleeping next to you while you find yourself tensing up every time she moves makes you realize why Betty thinks Gladys is more obtainable than you. And maybe Betty is right; maybe you're just being opportunistic about the situation, hoping that because she knew who you were she would understand all the stupid things that came out of your mouth.

You should have led with the way she made you feel, not that she's the only one you trust to keep your biggest secret. You should have told her that she's what makes you happy, or at least makes you feel taller than you are. You should have told her that you've put religion to the side for now, because religion has never made you feel alive the way she does.

You shouldn't have assumed that she felt that way about you, even though she was kissing you in her bed less than a week ago.

* * *

Author's note: Title from Marth Wainright's "Bloody Motherf**king A**hole".

This is short because the next chapter will be up in a few minutes. Couldn't leave it there.


	28. As is

Chapter 28: As is

* * *

You ignore your pounding head, the next morning, and knock on Betty's door while Gladys is still asleep. She opens it with a sigh and turns away, leaving the door open. You take it that's as much invitation as you're going to get, so you shut it behind you.

"I'm sorry about last night. I shouldn't have…" Betty cuts you off by waving her hand in the air, then lights a cigarette.

Betty sighs. "I'm not… like that… with Gladys. I just… you were too…" She trails off. "I needed you to stop, before I did something I might regret."

"Like what?" you ask,

"Like take advantage of you when you weren't in your right mind," she says with that crooked grin before slipping her cigarette back into her mouth.

A thought drifts into your head and refuses to be shaken. "But I'm not drunk now." You tell her. And then, before you can think about it, you've crossed the room and ducked your head and it's not until later that you notice a cigarette hole in the front of your nightgown because you were too busy kissing Betty.

There are a few panicked seconds in your brain before she realizes what's going on and starts kissing you back and then it's like… it's like you understand, now, why Ivan was so desperate when he kissed you, because you can't pull Betty close enough to you, and you can't get over the way her tongue feels when it brushes your lips, and you can't quite help the moan that you're embarrassed about when you pull away. She looks thoroughly well-kissed and her eyes are unfocussed and you're so proud you could do that to her.

"So, you see, I'm not going to blame you in the morning, and it's not just because you know. It's… Betty...you're the best person I ever met. And if I'm stupid enough to turn down a chance at being happy with you just because you're not who I expected to be with, then I must be pretty stupid."

"Wouldn't say you're stupid," she says, "just slow," and there's that slanted grin that lets you know that everything is going to be fine.

* * *

Author's note: Title from Ani diFranco's song 'As is'.  
Still a few chapters to go.


	29. You are my sunshine

Chapter 29: You are my sunshine

* * *

You're not sure where to go from here, so you're relieved when Gladys comes traipsing in a while later, rubbing her eyes. She looks momentarily taken aback when she sees you standing so close, but then she throws herself down on the bed with a yawn.

"Took you long enough," she says with a smirk you know she learnt from Betty. Betty steps back and puts what's left of her cigarette in the ashtray. You brush your hands over the front of your dressing gown, idly fingering the scorch-mark Betty's cigarette left.

"It did," you say, and Betty meets your eyes, flashes a shy smile your way.

"Well, what now?" Gladys asks. "We've got the whole day, although I could make myself scarce if you two wanted some… privacy…"

"Can we go to the lake? I've never seen it." You say, and Betty looks at you, affronted, like you've personally insulted her. But you haven't thought this through. You haven't thought anything through, other than your need to have someone that's _yours_, and no one has ever been as much yours as Betty has. You don't know what comes next, you don't know what to say or do, now that you've let her know.

"German submarines…" Betty says, warningly.

"It's just a big lake Betty, honestly." Gladys says. Betty rolls her eyes but you can tell she's going to give in because you know her. You know her eye rolls and her smirks and her shrugs.

* * *

The Packard makes short work of the trip, and you're torn between looking at that expanse of cool, clear water and the look on Betty's face as she sees it for the first time. You've seen lakes before, admittedly this is larger than any other you've seen, but for Betty this is her first lake and she's half-scared, half-overawed.

None of you have swimsuits, and to be honest it's probably still too cool to bathe but you spend the day alternating between dipping your stocking-less toes in the water and lying on the sand, weak sunlight filtering through clouds to warm your now-cold feet. Gladys produces some beer from the car and she and Betty swig some down, but you decline. You need your memories of this day to be as clear as that horizon.

Betty spends most of the day eyeing the water distrustfully and it's something that's so utterly _Betty_ that it makes you smile. It takes a lot of cajoling and eventually Gladys intervenes and both of your drag her in knee deep while she curses and sputters indignantly but once she's in she takes a long time scanning the water around her in something akin to wonder.

You know what the Bible has to say about premarital sex, but it's not exactly like you're ever going to be able to marry her, and you're not going to spend the rest of your life waiting, now that you know what it feels like when she has her arms around you from behind as the sun sets somewhere over the land behind the water.

It's something you never thought you'd have to think about until Betty came along. It's time to think about it.

* * *

Author's note: I usually try to update more than this the chronic pain took a mental toll I was unprepared for last week and it's been hard enough getting through each day without worrying about this too. So it had to wait a while. It might be a while before another update.

Title from the song by the Pine Ridge Boys.


	30. Change your taste in men

Chapter 31: Change your taste in men

* * *

Later that night, you're panicked. You don't think you should have done any of that.

But you refuse to repent for any of it. You have not repented for dishonoring your father. So you can't be forgiven anyway.

You've done so many things that can't be forgiven, what's a couple more? Your father was right when he told you that you didn't deserve the kingdom of heaven. But Leon believes in you, and you don't think you're a bad person. You've done what you thought was right, be it defending a friend or telling that same friend that they're your reason to believe in happiness.

God is supposed to be love, but you can't see a glimmer of it in any of your father's actions. Protectiveness, yes, teaching, yes, but there was no moment in his company that you felt loved. And if God sides with your father, and not Leon, then you'd rather not be loved by him.

You're just about ready for bed when Betty comes in, closing the door behind her. She hasn't had a bath yet and she smells like the lake. She's bashful and it makes you smile. She smiles back and takes your hairbrush, standing behind you at the mirror. She brushes your hair. No one has done that since you can remember. It feels nicer than when you do it yourself. She puts the brush down on the dresser when she's finished and you turn to face her.

"So," she says. Just that, but you know what she means.

"So," you reply, and her eyebrows furrow. Then her face clears and she steps forward quickly and presses her mouth to yours, pulls back questioningly, not sure if that was welcome.

You pull her to you and your hand touches her waist, under her shirt, at the back. She's so soft and smooth, in comparison to Ivan. You put her hand back over her shirt though. You're not ready to think about her bare skin; not yet.

"I thought about what you said, about happiness. I figured it out. It's music. Music and you." When her hand comes up to touch your face you don't mind, you don't flinch or move sideways like you used to with Ivan, but you can't tell her that. "It's just… I still haven't… I'm still thinking."

"'bout God?" She asks, because she's probably been thinking about that herself.

"God didn't do much for me in my life. Didn't answer many of my prayers. But he bought me to you. And that's more than enough for me." She looks uncomfortable, like she wants to deny that God had anything to do with it but she nods anyway. "I understand if you don't want to, but will you come to Leon's church with me tomorrow?" You ask, and her hand drops from your face. It resettles itself on your hip and she swallows before she nods.

"Just as you are," she says, and you don't understand what she means but you nod anyway. She tugs you a little closer, so you go with it, let your hands creep up her back and count the knobs of her spine, trace where the back of her bra cuts into her skin. Her body, in many ways, is almost as familiar as your own. Betty is familiar, and soft, and gentle, and caring and everything you wanted out of a boyfriend, or a husband. But you're still worried, because you don't know how much she wants from you, or how much you're willing to give. You're still worried about God.

She pulls away, finally, and presses another quick kiss to your lips. She's so fast you almost miss it and you find yourself leaning forward after her. She smiles and ducks out your door, pulling it closed behind her.

And you're left thinking about the ramifications of love and desire and hatred and fear. Everything's all curled into a little ball in your brain and you can't figure it out. All you can do is hope Leon will be able to.

* * *

Author's note: Off to get fattened up. Should be back in a week; don't think there's internet there. Title from the Placebo song. Doing better since I realized my only weaknesses are stairs and large bodies of water and sitting.


	31. Tell me what your hands are made for

Chapter 32: Tell me what your hands were made for

* * *

It's strange, the next morning, when Betty comes to fetch you. Last time you were in church with her, her proximity left you too distracted to pay close attention, seething inside at the thought that Betty thought she could fix you with religion but wavering when her hand rested next to yours on the pew. Now it's you dragging her along, and you're not sure what she thinks of it.

She hooks her hand into your elbow casually as you walk. It's a small sign of possessiveness but it doesn't bother you the way it bothered you when Ivan did something similar. Instead you enjoy the weak sunlight on your forearms and Betty's cool fingers in the smooth nook of your elbow. You get to the church all too soon, and there's a feeling of loss when she removes her hand from your arm.

Betty doesn't hesitate in the doorway this time, just walks in, ignoring the stares and whispers that start when she walks in and stop almost immediately after you follow her.

They recognize you here. They might think it's odd, Betty being here, but they know you. They haven't seen you in months, and the last time you were here you stormed out in indignation, but they know you. They accept you. They'll accept Betty, as long as she's with you.

Leon inclines his head from the pulpit as you slide into a pew next to Betty, her hand resting next to yours again. You slide your hand to cover hers; she looks sideways at you and smiles a little. She's a little worried, you can tell, but she doesn't move her hand away from yours.

You can't imagine not being able to touch her, now.

* * *

The service isn't very helpful, really, your head is too full of its own thoughts to take much in, but you feel more at peace than you did the last time you were here. It's not like you've forgotten what happened; you'll never forget. It just doesn't weigh as heavy as it used to. Your father is dead. It was your doing. But you're learning to accept it; you're learning to live with it. You're learning how to shut out his voice in your own mind, and listen to yourself instead.

You know with certainty that he would not have thought twice about it if he had thrown Betty off the stairs instead. It would have been, in his eyes, a righteous deed, committed by the right hand of God. And you're not like him; you think about it, over and over, but you're glad he's dead and it's finally over. Being glad he's dead makes you feel worse than killing him. You wish there was some way to get rid of the way it feels and the sudden movement of Betty's fingers turning so her palm fits flat against yours brings you back to the service; her thumb on the back of your hand almost does the impossible.

It takes you out of yourself, and you start listening to Leon again. He's talking about Job, and the hardships he faced, and you're relieved because you won't have missed much. You know the book of Job almost by heart. It seems more appropriate here though, in a church filled with people who have fought hard to earn their right to worship together. If anyone knows hardship, the people here do.

And then Leon says something to the congregation that whispers to you and you know to be right.

Better times are coming.

* * *

Leon stops you after the service, asks if you'd reconsider joining the choir. You're not able to speak at this moment, but you nod, and he says he'll expect to see you Wednesday night.

* * *

Betty walks you home and pauses outside your door. She shifts from foot to foot, then takes a step back, towards her door. You look at her properly then, fixate on the buttons of her shirt. There's something about them that suggests the possibility of being _unbuttoned_ and you have to look away. You remember her walking around in her underthings at VicMu, not bothering to hide any part of herself the way most of the others still do, just strutting around proudly.

Well, she has a lot to be proud of.

When you manage to drag your gaze back up to her face, she's watching you curiously. You just smile and fish for your key in your bag.

"Do you want…" she starts, and then swallows and your eyes follow the movement. "Do you want to come in?" She asks, and there's an awkwardness that's never been there before, suddenly there in the way she's standing, in the way you can't find your key, in the way you eventually nod. The only thing that isn't awkward is the way her hand fits so perfectly in yours, like it was made for that purpose alone.

* * *

Author's note: change of plan. My da had a fall and I had to go keep an eye on him and the property out Whoop-Whoop way. Never did put that weight on so no new meds but I got to chase wallabies which is kind of better. Had a while where emotions were limited to angry, sad and tired so I set the rooming house on fire; Betty got out safe, but Kate didn't so Betty went back in and, guys, no one made it out alive. So I waited 'til the angry left.

Title from the Tegan and Sara song.

And now I'm super busy because I'm not putting my life on hold anymore. I'm stuck with this pain for an indeterminate period of time; it's not going to stop me from having fun. Hopefully this story will be back with more regularly scheduled updates.


End file.
